


The Teacher's Pet

by beetle



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - School, Awkward Flirting, Awkward Romance, BDSM, Broken Families, Bull's Chargers, Child Abandonment, Coming Out, Dark Past, Dom/sub, Dom/sub Play, Elementary School, F/F, F/M, First Kiss, First Time, First Time Blow Jobs, First Time Bottoming, Iron Bull gets a name, Iron Bull gets a sub, Light Dom/sub, M/M, More pairings and people to come, Pansexual Character, Past Male Lavellan/OFC, Power Bottom, Power Dynamics, Power Exchange, Power Play, Sexuality, Sexuality Crisis, Single Parents, Teacher-Student Relationship, The Family You Make, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-24
Updated: 2017-06-24
Packaged: 2018-11-18 13:33:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11291697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetle/pseuds/beetle
Summary: So, ya know those cliched fics where the one character is an Elementary School Teacher, and they have that One Student Who’s Adorbs? And their One Student’s Conveniently Single Parent is super-hotandconveniently single, by the way? And Teacher and Parent meet for the first time regarding the One Student and the attraction is IMMEDIATE AND IRRESISTIBLE AND 5EVER? And shenanigans ensue—much wackiness and angst, and maybe some smut, but not on school-property, becauseeww—but lead to an eventually heart-and-flowers, hyperglycemic Happily Ever After?Mm-yeah, this islikeone of those, only . . . somewhat askew. Heed the tags and warnings, folks, and read responsibly.





	The Teacher's Pet

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hotot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hotot/gifts), [stitchcasual](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stitchcasual/gifts).



> Notes/Warnings: Modern-day AU. Exploration of Dom/sub, BDSM, and power-exchanges (if all goes according to plan). Keep an eye on tags and warnings for each chapters. Let me know if more tags are needed and if I got it--any of it--wrong.

 

 

“Mr. Bullard?”

 

Tired—and biting back a sigh that would loudly proclaim it—Rex “Iron Bull” Bullard finished briskly cleaning the whiteboard, put down the eraser, and turned to see which of his second-graders was about to make his long day just a little bit _longer_.

 

He found himself looking down into the light-brown eyes of his quietest, most serious student, then the light- _blue_ eyes of his most rambunctious, back-talking student.

 

Well . . . rambunctious and back-talking for a _British_ kid, anyway.

 

The eight-years-old, adopted siblings were, as was often the case, holding hands like identical twins, though they couldn’t have been any more different in looks and personality if they’d tried.

 

Pasting on a small, but encouraging smile, he stood arms akimbo, patient while they gazed up at him with wide eyes. “Yes, Miss Pavus? Mr. Pavus?” he asked, briskly, too, but also kindly. Even dead-on-his-feet and desperate to be anywhere but his classroom, Bull _loved_ children.

 

The girl—Emmanuelle, but the other children called her “Skinner,” for some reason . . . Bull could only imagine it was because she was almost literally more scrapes, cuts, bruises, and abrasions than child, thanks to her vicious, no-holds-barred style of rough-housing—narrowed her eyes, shrugged, then nudged her brother.

 

Cremisius, or “Krem” to everyone, even Bull, beamed a gap-toothed grin up at his teacher, and rubbed his freckled, slightly snotty nose with his free, if grimy hand.

 

“New-boy missed the bus!” Krem exclaimed, as if Christmas had come slightly early. Or very late. And next to him, Skinner nodded, then shrugged again, as if she’d lost interest in the conversation. But she raised her free arm, small and skinny, like the rest of her, and pointed toward the front of the building. Krem bounced a little. “He didn’t know where to go to catch the right bus and then the bus left early and then when he got to the proper spot it was gone and then he went to sit on the front steps and now I think maybe he’s crying, or something,” the boy finished with rather insensitive excitement.

 

Bull sighed and shook his head. “Well, that’s—unfortunate. Thank you for coming to tell me, you two. That was very considerate of you.”

 

Another shrug from Skinner and another bounce from Krem. “If no one comes to get him, does he get to spend the night at school? Will he sleep in the coat-room? Or the nurse’s office?”

 

His brow furrowing under the onslaught of Krem’s disturbing interest in this poor kid, Bull pulled a stern-ish face—not tough for a man who was pushing seven feet tall and three hundred pounds of military muscle, with a face that, between his craggy-prominent features and eye-patch, resembled nothing so much as a caveman-pirate—on his students. Skinner merely smirked with distant amusement—the sort of genteel ennui that was probably genetic for those of French ancestry—and Krem just blinked those big, excited blue eyes up at him.

 

“No, Krem. He will _not_ be spending the night at the school. I’ll take him to the main office and we’ll call his parents. Then, they’ll come to pick him up and take him home. All’s well, that ends well.”

 

“Oh.” Krem’s face fell into a pout. He, too, had now lost interest in the odyssey of his new peer. “Well, that’s not exciting at all.”

 

“Let’s go back outside, Krem, before Papa shows up and has to look for us,” Skinner suggested to her brother in a soft, heavily-accented murmur. Both Krem and Bull rolled their eyes.

 

 _No one_ wanted a repeat of _Dr_. Dorian Pavus storming into the building two Tuesdays into the school year, at three-oh-nine p.m. The man had been beside himself with anxiety and anger because his children hadn’t been outside at the drop-off/pick-up spot in front of the school, with the monitors, as always. His frantic, but posh accent—there were a _lot_ of British ex-pats living in Thedas County, Bull had noticed shortly after settling in it—had rung through the entire building as he threatened all manner of lawsuits and job-having if his children had been kidnapped or lost.

 

Said children had, it’d turned out, been still in Bull’s classroom, a mere few minutes after the three-oh-five bell rang, while he gently explained to them why one _shouldn’t_ try to feed the class mascot—a rabbit named _Nug_ —bits of smoked salmon from one’s lunch.

 

And though he’d still been markedly huffy upon storming into his children’s classroom—despite the reassurances of the frazzled and overworked vice-principal, who’d been hot on his fashionable heels—Dr. Pavus had certainly calmed down when he got a good look at their new teacher. He’d literally frozen in his tracks, his gray eyes gone as wide as his pouty, gaping mouth.

 

The thankfully not-kidnapped children had happily rushed to their father, all hugs and chatter—well, chatter from _Krem_ , anyway—while said father had continued to stare and stare at Bull as if at an alien.

 

A _big_ one.

 

Bull, all approximately six feet eight and a half inches and _exactly_ two hundred eighty-six pounds of him—including his caveman-pirate face—was quite used to that sort of reaction.

 

It wasn’t often that one saw elementary school teachers who looked like him.

 

But at least Dr. Pavus had stopped raging about lawsuits and similar nonsense. In fact, he’d very politely thanked Bull for looking after his children, then thanked the vice-principal for her time, before hurrying himself and his energetic children out of the otherwise empty classroom.

 

Since then, the man hadn’t been back inside the building once. Though his husband, Felix, had been in on several occasions, stopping to chat with Bull when time and tide permitted, and displayed none of his husband’s . . . trepidation.

 

He was a decent enough fella, Felix Alexius. And _not_ just for a politician, either.

 

Now, Bull winnowed his distracted and tired mind onto the problem at hand. “C’mon,” he said to the Pavus siblings, gesturing for them to precede him out of the classroom and to their classmate. “Let’s get _him_ to the principal’s office and _you_ _two_ to your father before he has kittens.”

 

#

 

Half an hour after the Pavus children were on their way home—at speed, once Dr. Pavus noticed _who_ was escorting them out to his idling, late model Audi—Bull had finished up the last of his work and classroom prep for the next day, and was, at last, ready to go home, and. . . .

 

. . . work on his lesson plans for next week until he fell asleep at his desk. Thence to wake up at dawn in a puddle of his own drool, being batted in the face by tiny, persistent paws and _mmrowed_ at pitifully.

 

Sighing yet again, and consoling himself with thoughts of his favorite beer and favorite friend keeping him company—respectively, a ridiculously strong micro-brew stout called _Maraas-Lok_ and a tiny, fiery-orange calamity of a kitten he called _Fuller_ —he supposed there truly _was_ no rest for the wicked.

 

He waved at Sera Emmald—the entertainingly batshit, Mancunian office secretary—as he passed the main office, aiming his tired feet toward the front entrance. _Not_ the back entrance, which led to faculty and staff parking, because he didn’t have a car to park. Bull didn’t much care for driving, and either walked or took public transit everywhere. The school, at least, was only six blocks from the on-going renovation project/money-pit he called _home_.

 

Six _long_ blocks, after a day like this. But that would make collapsing into his ridiculously expensive and comfortable, space-age lounger with Fuller in his lap, for a bit—but not _too_ long, because . . . lesson plans—a damned _human_ _right_ , not a privilege. But first. . . .

 

Despite the slightly onerous walk ahead, Bull’s stubborn feet turned him back toward the office before his brain could dredge up an effective protest.

 

 _May as well make sure all my loose-ends are tied_ , he told himself almost defensively, as he stepped into the brightly-lit, coffee-and-pastries smelling office. _I can’t very well just go home and be comfortable without making sure that poor kid’s sorted out._

 

“Hey, Sera-dipity,” he said, leaning on the counter and smiling wearily down at her. The small, mischievous blonde grinned up at him.

 

“Hey, you! You’re back quick! It isn’t even tomorrow, yet!” Steel-blue eyes took him in and her fine, pale brows shot up. “Wuff! Don’t _you_ look like the cat who drank the piss!”

 

“Uh . . . right.” Bull often couldn’t tell if what Sera said was _British_ -weird, or just _Sera_ -weird, so he tended to just nod, and go along with the less outrageous-sounding stuff. “Sure. Anyway, did the Lavellan boy’s parents pick him up yet?”

 

“His dad should be here, any minute, Bull,” Sera informed him, shrugging and nodding to her right. There, sitting in the second closest of a row of butt-numbingly uncomfortable chairs near the counter, was a small, waif-like boy with flaming-red hair that fell to his little, narrow shoulders, and a gamin, peachy-pale face sprayed with bright freckles and dominated by large, uncertain, green-gold eyes. “Cute little thing, he is. Silent as the grave, though.”

 

“Huh.” As Bull watched, the kid heaved a deep sigh and continued to stare off into space at some point between himself and his second-grade teacher.

 

With a wry glance at Sera, who smirked back and shrugged again, Bull shuffled over to the small boy and sat next to him, placing his beat-up, beloved briefcase on the floor between his feet.

 

“Got someone comin’ to pick you up, I hear,” he said kindly. The boy, Jamie Lavellan, peered up at him shyly, his big green eyes as curious and wary as a stray kitten’s, then nodded.

 

“Shouldn’ta missed the bus,” he mumbled sadly. “Now, Daddy’ll have to leave work early, just to come get me and take me home.”

 

Bull put on his most reassuring smile. “I’m sure he doesn’t mind. He wouldn’t want you to wind up sleeping in the coat-room overnight, after all,” he teased gently, and Jamie smiled a little.

 

“I guess,” he reluctantly agreed. “I just . . . don’t like to be a bother.”

 

Bull’s heavy brows shot up. “’Be a bother’? Are you _sure_ you’re just seven years old, Jamie? ‘Cuz that’s some awful grown-up worryin’ you’re doin' there, scamp.”

 

His smile fading, Jamie shrugged and looked down again.

 

“Is . . . does anyone at home _make you feel_ like a bother when you need some help or anything? Or even for no reason at all?” Bull probed nonchalantly, wondering if this week would end with him placing a call to Child Protective Services.

 

It wouldn’t be the first time in his career.

 

Jamie sighed glumly. “No. Daddy’s the best, and Aunt Fiona’s real nice, too. After Mommy took her _suh-bad-ih-gul_ , Daddy and I came here to live with his aunt. She looks after me every day, till Daddy’s done at work, and we do origami and my homework together until dinner-time . . . but she doesn’t have a car, though,” he added as if confiding a shameful secret. Bull snorted quietly, but then latched onto something else the boy had said.

 

“Your Mom . . . took a sabbatical?” he asked, wondering if Jamie’s mother was also a teacher. Jamie rubbed his right eye, then his left.

 

“Uh-huh. She said she was tired and under a _lot_ _of stress_. That being a mommy and a wife was _really_ _hard_ , and that she had to go figure some stuff out on her own. I wasn’t supposed to hear, buuuuut . . . I used to listen at the door when they fought. They thought I was asleep,” Jamie admitted, turning his big, sad gaze on Bull again. “Now, Mommy lives at a ranch in New Mexico and teaches people how to ride horses. Daddy says she’s on _suh-bad-ih-gul_ from our family, till she’s not so tired, and ready to come back home.”

 

For a moment, Bull was too stunned to respond. He could only frown down at the poor, worried kid next to him, his brain and heart in a tizzy over how to proceed. Himself an orphan until he aged-out of the system, the intricacies of the parent-child dynamic often escaped Bull. He didn’t always know how to help or even if it was his place to try.

 

“That’s why I shouldn’ta missed the school bus,” Jamie concluded grimly, rubbing at his eyes again. “I don’t want _Daddy_ to start thinking being a daddy is hard and not fun, and leave, _too_.”

 

Finally, Bull’s tired—overloaded—brain switched back on, and he managed to smile at Jamie again, as kind and sure as he could. “Not gonna happen, kiddo.”

 

Jamie sniffed and looked down again. “But, what-if—”

 

“No _ifs, ands_ , or _buts_ , Jim-Jams.” Bull’s off-the-cuff nickname for Jamie made the solemn child almost smile again. “Your Daddy _loves_ you. Loves _being_ your daddy and loves _you_. No amount of missed buses is gonna change that, kiddo, okay?”

 

That pensive, doubtful profile scrinched up a bit and Jamie opened his mouth to—probably—say _but_ _what if_. Before he could, however, a low, English-accented voice spoke from near the entrance.

 

“I couldn’t have said it better, myself . . . Mr. Bullard, I presume?”

 

Both Bull and Jamie looked up, and toward the office entryway.

 

“Daddy!” Jamie exclaimed brightly, with more joy and excitement than Bull—even after only four days of knowing Jamie Lavellan—would’ve guessed him capable of. The clearly relieved child jumped up and hurtled toward the lanky-lean, flame-haired man in the doorway while Bull was still levering himself out of his chair.

 

And then, Bull was just standing and staring. And probably gaping.

 

The new arrival—who could only, with his strikingly similar looks, right down to those large and lucent green-gold eyes and freckles, be Jamie’s father—caught his son and swung him, backpack and all, up into his arms. Jamie giggled as his father planted a loud, smacking kiss on his forehead.

 

“There’s my big boy!” Hefting his small son easily, Mr. Lavellan—wearing a faded, black Fleetwood Mac t-shirt and thin, white trousers, both spattered with varicolored paint, much like his lean-muscled, lightly-tanned arms—entered the office, proper, and nodded at Sera. His friendly, if tired smile garnered one in response from her, along with a saucy wink that made Jamie giggle again.

 

Then, Mr. Lavellan was turning to Bull, once more. His eyes traveled down, then up—and _UP_ —again, landing on Bull’s face and lingering with bemused curiosity. His smile widened, and Bull let out a breath—which he’d apparently been holding— _hard_. As if he’d been gut-punched.

 

Mr. Lavellan crossed the waiting area, his stride loose-limbed and relaxed, and Bull—too frazzled and gobstruck to muster his _normally_ automatic, calm-as-fuck game-face—flushed hot then blanched cold. Then flushed hot _again_ under that appraising, green-gold gaze. Mr. Lavellan stopped politely outside of Bull’s personal bubble, but he still smelled strongly of acrylic paint and the outdoors.

 

Finally, he offered his free hand—it, too, was covered in paint . . . work-roughened, but long and graceful: the hand of an artist—and Bull absently took it. Then shook it, forcing himself to hold the other man’s gaze as a static shock jolted his hand, then seemed to travel up his arm as galvanized warmth.

 

“We meet, at last, Mr. Bullard. You’ve become a household name at _Casa Lavellan_. You’re all this one talks about, lately,” Mr. Lavellan said wryly, kissing the top of his wide-eyed son’s shaggy, red head. But he held Bull’s gaze, which not many adults could do, and seemed not to be in a rush to free his hand from Bull’s giant mitt. “Anyway, I’m Jason. Jason Lavellan. Very pleased to meet you.”

 

TBC

**Author's Note:**

> The idea was mine, but Hotot helped me look at it in a way that _made sense_. So, this one's for them, but I hope you all enjoy. And, as usual, if I've tanked it at any point, let me know so I can fix it and learn. Graci.
> 
>  
> 
> _Holla atcha bug, on[the Tumbles](http://beetle-ships-it-all.tumblr.com), yo!_


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